fornication, and theft has been won- derfully sustained; but at this point many an author has failed.

But the author does not miss a trick. From a comparatively simple build-up the action comes to a most ' complex and delicately contrived

climax. Myra hoped she had found a future husband, but a casual un- thinking word from McCoy shows ' her that she can forget about that

completely; with rage and mortifica- tion she refuses herself to him, and when he persists she bites him savagely. .

McCoy, in an "hysteria of anxiety to which army desertion, the scorn of his fiancee, the threats of his credi- tors, and the nervousness of his recent theft all contribute, suddenly loses his self-control, and, full of bad whisky, strangles her in a struggle to possess her, and bashes her face to pulp with his fist.

The treatment of this scene," especi- ally of the girl's attitude and chang- ing moods, is wonderfully convincing; nor does the author allow the interest to fall here, but goes on to a record of suspense over broadcasts and Press reports of the crime, and to a meeting -with Margie, whose efforts to help a man who cannot tell her what is the matter with him intensify the sympathy we have for McCoy.

It is a sympathy which has horror in it. since there is enough humanity ¡n McCoy to remind any honest reader of" himself. Here is a book of tough people, tough language, and tough loves which could be more effective than sermons against illegal betting, over-drinking, bucking auth- ority, and theft; and a book which by its frank and discerning exposition of the loves of two women shows how much more dangerous to a woman is a man's lack of insight, than his will to harm her. Which is a lesson worth turning a novel into a moral treatise for, although it is only by implica- tion that one can speak of this book as a moral treatise. .